PAC: Corporates on government contracts should be subject to FoI

Performance of firms on public contracts need to be closely monitored to enable accountability

The scope of the Freedom of Information Act (FoI) should be extended to cover private firms – including IT companies – that work on government contracts, according to a Public Accounts Committee (PAC) report.

In its ‘Department for Work and Pensions: the introduction of the Work Programme’ report, the PAC concluded that there was currently not enough transparency over the financial affairs of firms that work for government.

“We remain of the view that in the interests of transparency, where private companies provide public services funded by the taxpayer, those areas of their business which are publicly funded should be subject to the Freedom of Information Act provision,” the report stated.

Earlier this month, the Cabinet Officerevealed changes to FoI, which require public sector departments to not only publish datasets, but make sure that they are available in a re-usable format.